The Revit Clinic

Structure Generator for Autodesk Revit

Just in Time for AU and a little Thanksgiving treat.  A new Technology preview is available for Revit Architecture and Revit Structure.

Structure Generator Overview:

Project Structure Generator for Autodesk^® Revit^® Structure and Autodesk^® Revit^® Architecture software is a technology preview that provides a connection between massing models and objects created during conceptual design and structural elements such as beams, column, walls, plates. With Project Structure Generator, structural engineers and architects, from the earliest stages, can very quickly create and visualize a physical and analytical model of a structure based on the massing model.

• Automatically create and visualize a physical model of the structure with mass objects
• Generate variants of the physical and analytical model with structural systems based on the massing model.
• Predict volume and weight of materials used.
• Extend model to Revit Structure or Revit Architecture.
• Extend massing model to structural analysis with Project Storm a cloud based technology preview on Autodesk Labs that allows static analysis to be performed or to Autodesk Robot Structural Analysis Professional software.

Watch the video can go get your's at on Autodesk Labs: http://labs.autodesk.com/utilities/revit_structure_generator/

Workflow Feedback

If you are interested in helping Autodesk create a better workflow between Autodesk Products, please take this short survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/NLBM883. 

Your input will help us create a more fluid workflow between design solutions. Ask yourself the questions below – if you said yes then we would like your feedback.

• If Revit is your primary design tool, have you ever had to include AutoCAD drawings or produce AutoCAD drawings as a deliverable? 
• If AutoCAD (includes all DWG-based products) is your primary design tool, have you ever worked with others on a project that might include some Revit information?
• Have you ever worked with others on a project that might include a model from software other that Revit?

Thank you!

 

Journal File Parser

Last weekend I wasn't feeling that great, and decided to play around with some scripting while we were just sitting around watching football. What I ended up with was a Journal File Parser, and I think it turned out to be useful enough to share.

What it does, is parses through a folder of journal files and pulls out the following:

Journal File Name
Start Date & Time
Username
Revit Build
Hardware Acceleration Status
Graphics Card
Graphics Driver
Operating System
Last Memory Usage Statistics
Last Entry Line

It takes all of this information and populates it into an Excel file.

So how is this useful?

When someone comes to us with a Revit problem, one of the first things we want to do is check the basics. Are users on the latest build? Do they have certified graphics cards? Are the correct drivers installed? Instead of having to open individual journal files to check all of these things, a single run of the script will pull out all of the information. Even if users aren't having problems, it could be used as a quick audit to make sure everyone is on the same build, has the same drivers, etc.

In addition, if a user is crashing, this can help us understand which journals to look at, and to eliminate memory as a suspect. The Last Memory Line will tell us how much memory was left the last time Revit reported it in the journal. So if the available RAM is really low, we'll be able to quickly identify it. If a user experienced an issue but they weren't sure which journal recorded it, we can quickly verify the Start Date/Times of the journals to be able to narrow down the right files faster. Also, if the Last Entry Line ends with 0:< finished recording journal file, that session probably wasn't a crash, so we can focus on the sessions that ended unexpectedly without having to open each one to check.

To use the script:

1. Create a 'Journals' folder in the same directory as the Script file.
2. Place all journal files to be parsed in this folder.
3. Double click the .vbs to run.
4. An Excel file named 'Journal Data.xls' will be created in the same directory as the script file.

Now keep in mind, I'm certainly not a programmer - so if it's reporting information you're not expecting, please let me know and I will be happy to fix it!

Download Journal File Parser

I'm finding lots of great uses for it already, and hopefully you will too. :)

Scheduling Duct and Pipe Elbows by Angle

A common request we are seeing is the desire to schedule duct and pipe elbows by angle so that they can be scheduled and ordered. As the Angle parameter is a System Family it cannot be scheduled normally.

The help automate this process we have found that creating a Shared Parameter with a formula should pull the angle of the elbow, which in turn can be scheduled.

The process for goes like this:

1. Create a Shared Parameter file.
2. Edit the elbow families and add the Shared Parameter.
3. In the Family Types, set the formula for the Elbow Angle parameter to = Angle.
4. In the project, create a duct or pipe fitting schedule with the Elbow Angle Parameter (along with any other parameters). 

 

You should now have a schedule that shows the Angles. From here, you can filter the information to best suit your needs.

One thing to keep in mind, is that initially the schedule will show all fittings (Tees, Crosses, Transitions, etc.), so filtering by "Elbow Angle > Parameter Exists", should only show the elbow families with the shared parameter.

Here is a video of the process:

Credit to Jason Martin for verification of the process.

 

In the project, create a duct or pipe fitting schedule with the Elbow Angle Parameter (along with any other parameters). 

You should now have a schedule that shows the Angles. From here, you can filter the information to best suit your needs.

One thing to keep in mind is that initially the schedule will show all fittings, so to only show the elbows set the schedule to filter by "Elbow Angle > Parameter Exists".

Here is a Video of the process:

Autodesk Cloud Rendering Hotfix released

Here is a list of what has been fixed. 

Cloud Rendering Web Portal: 

1. Re-render rendered the wrong view or had wrong thumbnail or view name.  We fixed two bugs in the gallery re-render feature. These should fix the wrong view re-render issues for new and previously uploaded files. 
2. Estimated time remaining information on progress bar.  The thumbnail progress bar remaining time estimate was not showing up when the mouse was hovering on it. 
3. Shorter view name in tooltip.  When you hover on a thumbnail in the gallery the pop-up that appears now displays the short version of the view name. 
4. Re-render email option added.  In the dialog that appears when re-rendering an image it's now possible to enable/disable the email notification 
5. Zoom sensitivity in panorama viewer.  We adjusted the zoom sensitivity in the panorama viewer.  There are slightly different behaviors depending on the browser used. That's expected. 
6. TIFF panoramas display.  Panoramas generated from TIFF images were not showing in the panorama viewer. 
7. Panorama size limited.  A Flash limitation in the Internet Explorer panorama viewer cannot display large panoramas.  Panoramas sizes are now capped for this reason and for overall system performance control.

Renderer:

1. Materials with bump set to 0 rendered black.  When a bump of relief map was set to 0 intensity the material was rendering black. 
2. Index of Refraction for Generic materials not working.  Generic materials had a fixed IOR of 1.5. Now we use the refraction parameter value correctly. 
3. Better rendering timeout estimation.  Some renderings were failing if they were taking longer than the estimated time. Now we allow extra time. 
4. Reflectivity parameters (equal values) error.  When Generic material reflectivity parameters were set to the same value the material was rendering incorrectly. 

Revit Add-in: 

1. Section box fix.  In some cases the section box was not cutting the geometry correctly when objects were visible in other non-sectioned views.  We now handle that case correctly. 

Download the add-in again and reinstall it to get this fix. 
http://rendering.cloud.autodesk.com 
New Rendering -> Download Rendering Add-in 

To download localized versions of the add-in, switch the page language before downloading (the option is a the bottom of the page). 

Important Update Regarding Revit Server 2012 Hotfix

We have been seeing some issues with the Revit Server Hotfix that was recently released. Some of your users may experience an error when attempting to Sync with Central for larger models or over slower networks. The issue can be identified by the following exception in the journal:

  ' 5:< Retry Count: 0 . Caught exception: 
  ' 5:<   System.ServiceModel.CommunicationException: The server did not provide a meaningful reply; this might be caused by a contract mismatch, a premature session shutdown or an internal server error.

which will typically occur during the following call to the server:

  ' 7:< Time: 11/9/2011 11:14:10:266 Calling: Boolean writeUpdatedElementPermissionsRecords(DataStorageDataContract.ServiceModelSessionToken, System.Collections.Generic.List`1[DataStorage.Permissions.PermissionRecord], System.Collections.Generic.List`1[DataStorage.Permissions.PermissionRecord])

We are working as quickly as possible to correct the issue.

If you have already applied the Hotfix and you are seeing this behavior, you can roll it back by reverting to the original DLL files.

 

Hotfix: Improve Stability When Uploading to Revit Server

UPDATE: Please see this post for important details about this Hotfix.

01-20-12 UPDATE: Please see this post for the updated version of this Hotfix.

The following Hotfix addresses a crash that may occur when Revit is uploading data to Revit Server during a Synchronize with Central operation.

Hotfix - Autodesk Revit Server 2012 - Improve stability when uploading to Revit Server

Please note that it must be applied to both Revit Server and the Revit product to be effective. Instructions on how to do so can be found in the Readme.

Before you apply the Hotfix, make sure you have Update Release 2 installed (20110916_2132):

Autodesk Revit Architecture 2012 UR2

Autodesk Revit Structure 2012 UR2

Autodesk Revit MEP 2012 UR2

Tip to bring back disappeared dwg files in section or elevation views

If you face an issue that your dwg files disappear in a section or elevation view when changing the zoom level, you can try to manipulate the far clipping settings to bring them back.

Often you can fix the issue by resetting the "Far Clip Offset" parameter on the view to a higher ( or highest possible) value or by setting the far clipping setting to "No Clip".

One Million!



Today, I have great news to share.  The Revit Clinic blog has reached a significant milestone; we have reached 1 million page views since launching the site. 

I really want to thank you, our readers, for continuing to come back to our blog, for your comments, and for your passion for Revit!

I would also like to thank the Revit Clinic blog team, those past and present, our primary authors: Kathryn Langan, Ryan Duell, Jeremy Smith, and Chris Aquino, and our guest authors: Rodney Page and most recently Orsolya Balazs (first post this week!). 

I also want to thank all our guest posters and contributors throughout the years as well as other Product Support and Autodesk bloggers, their re-posts have been greatly appreciated.

On to the next million!

 

Revit file Thumbnail Previews do not display in Windows Explorer - Update

This post is contributed by Niranjan Kamath who supports Revit on our team in India.

We have seen some issues with  thumbnail previews not displaying in Windows Explorer. On some machines, the Revit family and project file thumbnail previews don’t show up.  You may remember a post we did a while ago on the topic: Thumbnail Previews and Locked Files in Windows Explorer

In most case, it is related to a specific dll file. For Revit 2012, it is Revit.Thumbnail.dll, and for Revit 2011 and 2010 version, it is Revit.FilePreview.dll.

In order to fix this, follow the steps below:

1. Click Start- -Run
2. Enter regsvr32 /u "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2012\Program\Revit.Thumbnail.dll"
3. Click OK, a message will show up saying DllUnregisterServer succeeded, click OK.
    
4. Click Start- -Run
5. Enter regsvr32 "C:\Program Files\Autodesk\Revit Architecture 2012\Program\Revit.Thumbnail.dll"
6. Click OK, a message will show up saying DllRegisterServer succeeded.
   

Note:

1. You need to modify the path above based on your own Revit installation folder. If you can’t find this dll file on your machine, you can copy it from DVD or other machine.
2. For Revit 2011 and 2010, replace Revit.Thumbnail.dll with Revit.FilePreview.dll in the path above.